News links for March 12 2014 – 3

1. BREAKING: Palestinians Fire at Least 60 Rockets At Southern Israel

(Is this where Obama is getting all his new geniuses for NASA?)

Palestinians in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip launched at least 60 rockets at Israeli population centers around 5 p.m. local time Wednesday, triggering sirens across the country’s Gaza envelop and deepening worries that Palestinian terror groups may be positioning themselves to start another round of fighting with the Jewish state.

Early reports had the attacks claimed by Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), one of several groups that observers worry have been stockpiling weapons, including advanced missiles. PIJ, Hamas, and other Gazan terror organizations have been locked in cycles of cooperation and competition for domestic and regional popularity. A PIJ team yesterday managed to fire a mortar at Israel. An Israeli airstrike targeted the fighters, killing three.

2. Is China in Al Qaeda’s Crosshairs?

 What does a knife attack in western China have to do with the Malaysian Airlines disappearance?

Two weeks ago, 34 people were killed and 130 injured in a mass stabbing attack at the Kunming railway station in Yunnan, China. Reports said as many as 10 black-clad assailants wielding knives and machetes attacked people at random. The event caused shock in China and around the world, with many referring to it as the “Chinese 9/11.” Just days before, an Al Qaeda-affiliated group released a video threatening China. And this week, that video gained much greater significance, when Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing disappeared without a trace.

3. US President warns Russia of ‘costs’ over its dispute with Ukraine  

4. Govt. of Iraq makes statement on Syrian situation. (Quite a good one actually)

5. Lebanese mayor arrested in Spain, accused of attempted organ trafficking

(Something tells me it wasn’t a Hammond B3)

Madrid (CNN) — A wealthy mayor from Lebanon has been arrested in Spain for allegedly offering to pay $55,000 to poor people to obtain liver tissue for his liver transplant, police and a government official announced Wednesday.

It’s the first time that potential human organ trafficking, a worrisome international crime, has been detected in Spain, authorities said.

The mayor, a 61-year-old man, was arrested on January 30 at Manises Airport in Valencia. He has since appeared before a judge, who filed preliminary charges for alleged organ trafficking and released him on condition that he surrender his passport and remain in Spain, police and the official said at a Madrid news conference.

6. Terry Glavin article in the Ottawa Citizen on the UN ‘Human Rights Commission’ 

On the plus side, on March 17 the UN Human Rights Council is set to deal with a decades-overdue UN inquiry into North Korea, released only last month. The 400-page commission report has found the regime to be engaging in “extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence, persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, the forcible transfer of populations, the enforced disappearance of persons and the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation,” among other things.

Thank you M, Wrath of Khan, Fjordman,  UN Watch and all who sent in material. More to come. Its only late afternoon.